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There has also been a troubling spike in eating disorders,with experts and parents warning children are being refused admission to hospital until they are desperately sick or their organs are failing.
School refusal rates are also soaring. In Victoria,which endured the most lockdowns in the country, the rate grew by 50 per cent in the three years to 2021, with almost 12,000 students in government schools officially absent in the second year of the pandemic.
“There is a concern about potentially a lost generation of children,who at a very critical stage of their development didn’t get the support they needed because we didn’t have in place the scaffolding that was required,” Hollonds said. “They were shut out of the services that could have helped them. ”
Hollonds,who has travelled around Australia investigating the implications of COVID for youngsters,heard distressing accounts from parents of suicidal children under the age of 12 who were sent away from overwhelmed public hospitals and told to find private psychiatrists.
“If you can’t get a suicidal child into a public health environment urgently,there is something seriously wrong with our system.”
She said the greatest lesson from the pandemic was that schools were so much more than a place of academic learning and their role could not be replicated online.
“We need health services,such as speech therapy and mental health services,integrated with local schools,” Hollonds said. “Schools should be hubs of support for kids and families.”
Among aspects of the pandemic response to receive her most scathing criticisms was the fact that more than two years passed without a national pandemic framework for children and schools.
She recalled being “horrified and appalled” when pubs and restaurants were reopened in NSW before students were allowed to return to the classroom following the deadly Delta wave of 2021.
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Sydney paediatrician and Royal Australasian College of Physicians president Dr Jacqueline Small said her colleagues were reporting an enormous rise in demand from children and families.
Complicating the matter was a lack of data on the extent of waiting lists to see paediatricians in the public and private sectors.
“This disadvantages us regarding understanding the real extent of the demand,” Small said.
“Some paediatricians are simply having to close their books because they just can’t manage the demand.”
The more serious health effects of COVID-19 on adults had meant children’s wellbeing had taken a back seat during the pandemic,but it was time to put children first,Small said.
She had been pushing for a child-focused taskforce to be established before last year’s federal election and for a chief paediatrician to be appointed to lead the effort.
“Where there’s multiple or sustained traumas,the impact on children’s development,learning,health and wellbeing throughout the lifespan can be sustained if it’s not addressed,” she said.
Small and Hollonds said any taskforce must be multidisciplinary,encompassing health,education,social services and disability departments.
Historically,at a government policy level,children have always been seen as the responsibility of their parents. Hollonds said this meant there had been an absence of a national child wellbeing policy.
“Had there been a national child wellbeing framework that was overarching all the disparate,siloed strategies across the different government portfolios,it could have been our guiding star on child wellbeing,” she said. “The answers would have been in there.”
Hollonds said a national framework was needed so the needs of children and young people are at the centre of any future emergency response.
“We need to start to reinforce this idea that children are not just an appendage of their parents,” she said. “Children have needs unique and different to ours and they need a special focus.”
While there is no official children’s minister in Australia,Labor’s Anne Aly is the federal minister for early childhood education and youth. Aly said she seriously considered any recommendations made by the national children’s commissioner.
She said the federal government had established a youth steering committee to ensure young people have a voice on government policies and services.
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Recruitment is under way for five youth advisory groups,including one focused solely on mental health.
Aly said more than $500 million had been invested to help improve student wellbeing across Australia through the national student wellbeing program.
The federal government is implementing an early years strategy focused on improving outcomes of children up to age five,a move strongly supported by Hollonds,who said this cross-portfolio policy reform should be extended to all school-aged children.
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